Sadly, very little film from my third year at Birmingham survived the scanning process (one reason not to use Max Spielmann again) and the only photographs I have are from other places. On the left is the slightly-under-construction Eden Project, a series of gigantic geodesic domes near St Austell that house plants from various biomes around the world. Below is Leeds 2001, possibly the first music festival I attended and also the first riot I was caught up in. The stage shot gives you an idea of how difficult it is to get anywhere near a performer (in this case, Iggy Pop) and the night shot shows the aftermath of the riot, when festival-goers decided to burn down the portable toilets.

During the 1999-2000 winter break, with general panic about the impending Y2K bug, I decided to ride out the coming apocalypse in the scenic surrounds of YHA Arnside, nestled near Silverdale in the Lakeland Fells. We ended up catering a New Year party for a large group of tandem cyclists, and enjoying the (limited) snow and hoar frost the rest of the time.

My second year at Birmingham, the portion of it captured on film at least, was characterised by more trekking around the wet and windy uplands that happened to be a convenient drive away. By this time, I had been upgraded to supervisor status (having completed the hiking section of my own D of E the previous summer) and was largely occupied with making sure that nobody got hypothermia. One particularly resourceful group had everything they were carrying drenched during a surprisingly violent squall except their cannabis supply, which had received top priority in the waterproofing hierarchy.

Above, left to right: The Vale (student residences at Birmingham), The University of Birmingham’s central campus. Below, left to right: Edgbaston cricket ground, Coverack Bay (Cornwall).

Just as I was beginning to wonder whether being in the scenic Scottish Highlands was worth such a crappy job, I got an offer to go to Derbyshire and work for the Youth Hostel Association at Ilam Hall. I was off like a rocket, and spent the rest of the summer serving food, cleaning up after hikers and exploring the rainforest-like limestone valleys of the White Peak. This was my first encounter with the YHA’s seasonal assistant programme, and it opened doors to jobs for all the university holidays I happened to be in the UK for.

Above, left to right: Dovedale, a natural arch in the Dovedale valley. Below, left to right: The view back towards Ilam, Thorpe Cloud.

One of my first summer jobs was way up on the west coast of the Scottish Highlands, in the picturesque port town of Ullapool. The job itself was terrible (I would last a mere few weeks before getting a better offer and escaping to England), but I could not have found a more beautiful location. Framed by mountains to the north and east, Loch Broom to the south and the Summer Isles to the west, there were innumerable hikes and explorations to be had for the actively inclined. Perhaps my most notable was the imposing Stac Pollaidh (the spiky mountain at the very bottom left below), from which I took the 360° panorama above (while standing on a ~1′ x ~1′ rock chimney).

Above, left to right: Ullapool and Loch Broom, Ben More Coigach from Beinn Giubhais. Below, left to right: Loch Achall from Creag Nam Broc, the Summer Isles from Meall Mor.

Above, left to right: An Teallach from Beinn Eilideach, at the summit of Beinn Eilideach. Below, left to right: Stac Pollaidh, Strath Kanaird.

﻿With the best part of a day in central London at my disposal (before moving on to Hong Kong), I had initially planned on basing myself in the South Kensington area and visiting both the Natural History Museum and Victoria and Albert Museum. As things turned out, the Natural History Museum was just too interesting and I spent several hours exploring it quite thoroughly. The place was overrun with school groups from the minute the doors opened in the morning, giving me valuable insight into what kids are interested in doing in museums (showing off to other kids, followed by finding gruesome or unusual exhibits, followed by whacking all buttons on an interactive display simultaneously).

Given lots of time to poke around the less-visited sections of the museum, I was rather hoping to find a forgotten door or access tunnel to a non-public area (cf.Dry Store Room No. 1). However, the staff have been quite vigilant and all forbidden areas are effectively labelled as such (though from the sheer volume of staff going in and out of them, tailgating would be sheer simplicity). Unfortunately, the main stuffed mammals gallery was closed for redevelopment (possibly for the mounting of the Thames Whale skeleton) but the rest of the animal kingdom compensated more than enough. The daily talk (kind of a “meet the scientist” series) was about human evolution in Africa’s Great Rift Valley, complete with pass-around replicas of the most important skulls and gorgeous pictures of Kenya.

Finally, I took my third tour of the Darwin Centre‘s wet collections – thousands upon thousands of specimens preserved in spirits (ethanol, methanol or formaldehyde) used as a research resource. Only a few are on public display, the vast majority being sequestered behind fireproof doors in chilled rooms, but they are always impressive. Notable items include most of the samples collected on the second voyage of HMS Beagle (following which Darwin developed his theory of evolution by natural selection), a coelacanth (Latimeria chalumnae; a species thought extinct until one was fished up in 1938) and a complete giant squid (Architeuthis spp.; there would also have been a colossal squid, Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni, but it broke apart during hauling-in and everything except the head was lost).

Having discovered quite late on in my stay in Yorkshire that I look pretty good in a flat cap (the traditional local headgear), I walked up to Emley Moor to test it out. I was mentally reviewing its performance in various categories, the most important being warmth (quite), stability (a little on the small side; I have since received a new one) and aesthetics. While I was up there, I took advantage of the spectacular view of farmland dropping down into Huddersfield to rig up the tripod and look like some country squire following gentlemanly pursuits.